I’ve recently attended my first graduation ceremony, it was my own. Until this year, I’ve managed to avoid every opportunity for group celebration around completion (and many other events.)  I’ve come from a long, well-held habit of evasion.   I’d always known this was the case.  I’ve justified my discomfort by saying things to myself: I’m just not that social of a person, Or, my whole family were introverts….or I’m just not interested…or more recently, I don’t believe in endings (spritual sha-bang).

I’ve only had one reoccuring dream in my life.  In this dream, I never graduated high school.  I have to go back (at whatever current age I am) and try to blend in with the students and pass classes.  Even in my dreams I never make it to the graduation ceremony.  Without fail, few years later, I have the dream again.

People ask me about the process of Rolfing SI – and the best answer I have is: fun things keep happening to me.  What went from a question to resolve a literal ‘pain in the ass’ in the summer of 2012, turned into a psychophysical revolution.  Concurrently through the years of structural change, allies, friends, fellow writers and seekers of truth have emerged.  We’ve coincided like ecstatic magnetic spirals to serve and lift up one another.   And…. I now attend graduations, feel excited to meet people – and my voice is louder in my skull.  So that’s what is happening to me.

Remapping my body and nervous system has allowed me to let go of the old need to cling to stories of introvertism, and isolation out of fear of self preservation.    I realize, I no longer feel drained to be in the world.  And for the pain in my ass?  It’s still there, occasionally, when I am slouching and tired – when I’m not doing the things I love.  Pain is a good reminder for me to get off my ass – it is my friend.   I doubt I’ll have the dream again.

Allison for the Poplar Grove Muse